PursuitOfHappinessParty

It's not political, it's financial. My point is that the moon didn't have private industries with opposing agendas like alternative fuel's nemesis in fossil fuel related industries.

The ills of our society I agree with, however. Like an mentally disturbed person, the entire society has seemed to slide into mental illness.

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" Tie two birds together and though they have four wings they cannot fly " Blind Master in 'Circle Of Iron'

Malkavian

It hit $3.76 here....

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Woof!

OldManOnFire

Great that you have this option! We live in a great area and with this comes a very high cost of living. So we complain but don't complain too much. It's part of the price to live where we live and to enjoy the restrictive zoning that so far has reasonably protected the area.

There is a great website to search for best gas prices: GasBuddy.com - Find Low Gas Prices in the USA and Canada and I'm sure there are others.

It's also quite rural here, lower population centers, and yes we can drive 15/20 miles to larger business centers, but seldom is the gas more than $.10/gallon cheaper--not really worth the drive...

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Did you know both our problems and the solutions can be found simply by looking in our mirrors...and...Never confuse the extraordinary stuff I think and write with that of a well-balanced person...

OldManOnFire

No they didn't but it was still...as Neil Armstrong said; one giant leap for mankind.

Who cares about oil companies--it just adds to the challenge.

How about this scenario??

What if only 15% of the entire population of the USA, or about 45 million people, wrote a contract to GM, and in that contract they pledge to buy a hybrid/electric vehicle, one that competes with the specs of the Prius, but sells for $15,000? Would this get someone's attention?

What if 15% of the population created a contract with a solar power company, in which they pledge to install solar panels, DC/AC inverters, batteries, etc. in their homes, if the price of the installation does not exceed $15,000? Would this get someone's attention?

I always use the same argument about the Iraq occupation; what if only 1% of the entire US population, every single day, sent emails to all members of Congress, demanding an end to the Iraq debacle, and if not they will be voted out of office. This would be 3,000,000 emails per day!!! Do you think this would get their attention?

My point is that we the people have so much power to change course but we're stigmatized by our personal bias and self-serving ambitions which prevents us from uniting--even a lousy 1% of us can't do this!!

As a kid growing up in Los Angeles, being in Disneyland on opening day, and going there more often that I care to admit, for me anyway, Walt Disney was a personification of dreaming about tomorrow and setting in motion the effort to realize those dreams. It's hard to explain, but so much of Disney seemed to give me hope that we're not in a static situation. It's this unbridled feeling that no longer seems to exist in America, and as most all of our issues become critical, we are paying the price for our narrow and complacent actions.

We need to take a few more of those 'giant leaps for mankind'...

__________________
Did you know both our problems and the solutions can be found simply by looking in our mirrors...and...Never confuse the extraordinary stuff I think and write with that of a well-balanced person...

PursuitOfHappinessParty

OMOF;
I couldn't agree more.

Many control or abuse power in America. However, the real power remains in the hands of the people - hence the hundreds of millions spent on wooing our vote. Tho Diebold and Electoral College shenanagins can unsurp the people's will to a point, a true mass of will from the people united would overwhelm these 'tweaks' of manipulation.

More in case to your point, at the end of the day in a free-market economy the buyer has the power.

As to your disney experience and it's effects on you, this country was once known globally for it's citizens sharing just those very opinions. Those people and those opinions are still there, IMHO, it's just drowned out by the glitz and money advertisements to the point that that mass of people have forgotten there is a mass of people.

It's also hard to unite or motivate a people who have attained such a high standard of living. We are hoist to our own petard, as it were.

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" Tie two birds together and though they have four wings they cannot fly " Blind Master in 'Circle Of Iron'

OldManOnFire

When masses of people 'think' they can simply stop buying gasoline on Monday's and this will get the attention of the oil companies, this is about punishment of those oil companies.

If these same masses of people took real steps to drive less, to work from home, to improve their gas mileage to 35mpg, to use mass-transit, to buy hybrids, etc., these will have far-reaching positive results.

The difference in these two scenarios is the first one requires almost no effort--don't buy gasoline on Monday but okay to buy it on Wednesday. The second scenario requires 'change' and what some people will construe as 'sacrifice' which is why it will be slow to effect any positive change.

I've noticed that media attention to $4 gasoline has already subsided so this tells me $4/gallon is quite tolerable--it also tells the oil companies the same message. So perhaps when it hits $5/gallon or higher, more people will get the point, and change will finally begin to evolve...

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Did you know both our problems and the solutions can be found simply by looking in our mirrors...and...Never confuse the extraordinary stuff I think and write with that of a well-balanced person...

Refuge51

Obama video ad on gas tax holiday

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I'm fed up to the ears with old men dreaming up wars for young men to die in.
~George McGovern~

BleedingPinky

Ok, lets do some math.
As of today, may 1, one litre (0.2642 gallons) of premium 95 costs 1.150 Euros over at this Shell gas station a few blocks away. Now,
1,150 E---------0.2642 G
x E --------- 1 G

x=1.150/0.2642 = 4,352763 E per G

Now, 1 Euro= 1.54842 $, so that makes 1 gallon costs 4,352763*1.54842= 6,7399 $

Boy I´m glad I bought a little Citröen C3 1.1 a couple of years ago. Dad was wise enough to go and buy a 1973 Dodge Dart Swing v6 back in the mid seventies crisis. Nowadays I hopefully think I´m following his wise steps,(considering times have changed). One helluva powerful hi-fi/ CD-car radio, a/c, and nice smooth clutch for those everyday 40 minutes average rides to and from work. The ´1 person per car´ within the hundreds/thousands vehicles at traffic jams is still there, me included. Oh well, I hope to fix that somehow one of these days talking with a few neighbors. Not an easy task though.

OldManOnFire

It's all politics...as usual for Obama and Clinton and all of them...period!

Clinton's idea of removing the federal gas tax during the summer vacation months was not provided as a short term or long term solution. It was just a way of saying to Americans who will be traveling on vacation, etc. that an 18.4 cents reduction per gallon of gasoline is a little help for them. I'll take the 18.4 cents reduction from my current $4.03/gallon gasoline.

Creating higher mpg automobiles is a joke since it will take many years to achieve and the calculations are deceitful at best. Unless something has changed, automobile manufacturers in order to achieve a certain mpg standard are allowed to AVERAGE all their models. So this explains why many of them make sub-compacts that no one wants but it reduces the average mpg number which is great to publicize. If I'm wrong about this calculation I would like to know.

Also, I don't know if and when the technology will exist to make all of our current 10 to 20 mpg car models to become 35-40 mpg cars?? Many many years will be my guess. For businesses and households with several kids, etc. there will always be a need for larger and higher HP/torque vehicles. All cargo type vehicles will be in this category. The only way to reduce the mpg is with much smaller cars and these are only purchased by some percentage of the public. Further, all of these higher mpg cars that Obama and others brag about...in order to realize this most of us must buy a new car with this new technology. So until hundreds of millions of cars are recycled through their useful lives, and half of us have purchased new 35/40 mpg cars, there will be no significant mpg gains.

Summary; how many years until there is 35 mpg technology for 75% of our vehicles==my guess is 15 years minimum. As of that date, how long will it take lots of people to buy new vehicles==my guess is ten years minimum. So my guess is that it will be a minimum of 25 years before there will be any concept whatsoever of 35 mpg average consumption. And I'll add another 10 years to this guess if the new technology is not reasonably affordable! Meanwhile we can buy a Prius for $25,000, a Smart car or Zap car for $10K-$15K, or even a Nano from India for $2500. But remember, in these tiny yet very efficient cars, when mixed in our current road infrastructure, with gigantic and heavy vehicles, and speeds at 75/80 mpg, all car wrecks in which a tiny car collides with a 5000 to 35000 pound vehicle, the tiny car will be nothing more than a bug-splat on the larger vehicle's windshield...

__________________
Did you know both our problems and the solutions can be found simply by looking in our mirrors...and...Never confuse the extraordinary stuff I think and write with that of a well-balanced person...

BleedingPinky

(Fairly) cheap solution. Make three out of two lanes. No kidding here. I´ve drived over there.